The Builders and the Butchers

Product Description

Over the five year history of The Builders and the Butchers, from their beginnings playing on rainy Portland streets for the random passersby, to the last three years of endless touring, the band has lived and died for its connection with the audience. Whether playing bar gigs for 50 people or opening arena shows for 3000, the band strives to connect with the audience every time they take the stage. It's that beyond anything else that keeps the Builders going. They've have toured with Heartless Bastards, Portugal.The Man, Amanda Palmer, and Murder By Death, to name a few. Their legendary live shows have solidified the group as the best new up & coming band in Portland.

Review

The Builders and the Butchers initially turned heads with their immersive performance style - employing singing in the round sans mic, recruiting the crowd as back-up vocalists, traipsing off into the street in the middle of the closing song. But shorn of the theatrics, the band's music easily holds its own. The record traces the course of a traditional Butchers set, from stripped-down crowd-grabbing opener The Night, Pt. 1 to lovely sing-along gospel closer Find Me in the Air. In under a year, the band's gone from Mississippi Pizza party band to Crystal Ballroom opener, and this album shows why. --Willamette Week (Best Local Albums of 2007)

A brand of dark folk with intense vocals and an instrumental setup that is all over the map - strings, banjo, washboard, tambourines, mandolin, etc. are in the mix, along with the traditional guitar and drums. --Cable and Tweed

Their music harkens back to a time of great wide open western coastal state expansion. There's more of a gospel/Tom Waits feel to it all, though, and under the dark folk stories, there's lots of banjo, washboard, and fiddle. It blends to create gothic Americana-folk-rock with a little more 'umph!' than your average Decemberists song. --My Old Kentucky